Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Because I Have No Xanax

Well, here I am in hour I-don't-even-know of one of the worst anxiety phases of my entire life and it's so bad that I am rethinking my trip to the island. Listen- I can't even bring myself to call the guy to set up the ride for the bay-crossing!However, I am proceeding as if I were going; I am trying to fake this until I make this and then hope that the magic of an island cures me.In the meantime, I am going to write out the recipe for angel biscuits because what in the world is as soothing as contemplating biscuits?These biscuits are fussier than my normal biscuits. However, they are the very best biscuits I have ever personally made or eaten. The recipe was given to me by my husband's Aunt Ann who is a good Christian Southern woman and who died once at church on an Easter morning and was revived and risen and is living to this day in Nashville where I feel certain she is still making these biscuits.Need I say more?I don't think so.Except for this- if there is someone you have set your hat for and they seem not to be sure of their feelings for you, make them these biscuits.Things will soon be going your way and love will abound.

Sift flour, sugar, and soda. Cut in shortening until texture of cornmeal. Mix the 1 cup of flour, 2 cups of milk and yeast in the water in a separate bowl. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. Place in a greased, covered bowl. Keep in refrigerator for use as needed. You may keep this for up to a week and use only as much at a time as you want.Roll out the dough on a floured counter to desired thickness and cut biscuits with a glass of desired biscuit-size that has been dipped in flour. If you want layers, roll them fairly thin, sprinkle with a little flour, fold dough over and roll again. This may be repeated several times. Bake on a greased baking sheet at 425 degrees for approximately 20 minutes or until brown and lovely.

Wash figs, slice lemon extremely thin and remove all seeds. Combine sugar, water, and lemon in a large pan and bring to a boil and cook for five minutes. Add figs and cook rapidly until the figs are clear. You will know what I mean.Seal in clean, hot jars with canning lids and bands. Process in boiling water bath for about ten-fifteen minutes. Remove jars and listen for the "pop" which means they have sealed.Makes 3 pints.

16 comments:

Everyone must be awed by the power of the biscuits, and powerful they are. Or they are out harvesting figs with little angel pregnant bowls resting in their refrigerators. Hang on Mama, your birthday is not for you to stress over, but for us to celebrate the fact that you were born.

Miss Maybelle is right but it's not that simple. We ALWAYS stress over plans, don't we? Pppppplans are scary things. Of course so are surprise parties. I personally have settled on quiet birthdays at home.

Those biscuits sound like they could very well be better than my Biscuits Supreme and I had to laugh because I made them for the big guy when I met him, along with Southern fried chicken and we were married within 3 months. ;)

The world may think it's gotten all sophisticated and PC and shit, but the truth is this: the way to a man's heart is his stomach. Fried chicken and biscuits can get you a man. Sorry. That sounds so wrong. But I stand by it.

To my knowledge I have never dated a woman who had the interest or ability to feed me anything.

The feminist movement fucked that all up. The message was sent that performing "traditional" relationship functions like that was demeaning so mothers quit teaching daughters to cook, empowering them into other things less useful than cooking.

Seriously.

Meanwhile, all of the guys got hungry and figured it out for themselves.

To my knowledge I have never dated a woman who had the interest or ability to feed me anything.

The feminist movement fucked that all up. The message was sent that performing "traditional" relationship functions like that was demeaning so mothers quit teaching daughters to cook, empowering them into other things less useful than cooking.

Seriously.

Meanwhile, all of the guys got hungry and figured it out for themselves.

Juancho- that is such a sad thing to say. I say that men and women both should cook for each other with love. If one person in the partnership loves cooking more than the other, then of course it would make sense for that person to cook more often. But seriously- even Mr. Moon- who NEVER cooks now, made me shrimp scampi and chocolate covered strawberries when he was courting me. We all deserve to be cooked for sometimes.

You had me until I realized I'd need a 'sifter' & a 'rolling pin' (2 appliances I don't own) and canning jars and lids - although I have seen these items for sale in stores. Anyway, my guests would probably have me committed if I did anything out of character like bake biscuits from scratch and/or put up preserves. Where's the Pillsbury Dough Boy when you need him?

Ms. MOB- guess what? I don't sift. That's what the recipe says to do, but I don't do it. The biscuits would probably be better if I did, but they're already heavenly, so WTF?And as to rolling them out- well, you can do that with a wine bottle. OR, you can just pat that dough like you'd pat a baby's behind, gently, until it's smooth and flat. I've done that plenty of times. As to the figs- ah, go buy some.

Oh my God. It makes me happy just to know that somewhere in the world there is a homemade chicken pot pie. In fact, thanks for the reminder. I believe that I may make a very small one for myself while I'm on the island. You could get your brother to do a guest blog (!) and give us his recipe.

Kathleen- I am not sure. A lot. The beautiful thing about this recipe is that it will keep for days in the refrigerator and you can take out and use as much of the dough at a time as you want. I would not be afraid to keep it up to a week and frankly, I think they get better with a little age.

I try very hard to answer every comment I get. This is important to me because otherwise, it's not a dialogue. Sometimes life gets busy and I can't, but I do try.
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